[APD] RE: high K+ test

["Thomas Barr" <tcbiii at earthlink_net>]

>  The main problem is I cant measure exactly my nutrients
> levels, then I,m blind :-(. I,m tryng to know WHY happens not HOW to
avoid.
> ;-)

Yes, I think that is a clear distinction.
Although I may not have a problem, nor be able to reproduce it, I know you
folks ARE HAVING issues and less K+ seems to be reducing the problem.

> Which other nutrient than Ca can produce distorted grow? Boron? Another
> explantation possible beside nutrients uptake?
> Best Regards
> Antonio Trías

Well, I think deficiencies based on agricultural crops is not a bad place
to start, but other types of deficencies and __excess__ levels may cause
problems with these less studied and obscure aquatic plants.

All concentrations nutrients have deficient and excess toxic levels for
plants/critters/bacteria.   

That being said, I'm still wondering why I do not see it and haven't for
over 8 or so years I've been using K+. There's not much in the literature
specific to this issue with aquatic plants, nor anything that clear in
terrestrial system except that the problem in removed when there's enough
Ca and something to stabilize the pH(Generally from CaCO3, lime application
etc).
Adding K+ has been shown to reduce Na+ stress in plants.

But folks have said they still have this issue when they have hard tap
water. 
Generally with harder tap water, you add more traces. 

So .......

We can act like Plant Physiologist and pour chemicals on plants and see
what happens but it'll take a long time and lots of destroyed plants to
figure out some of the possible effects. Even then, we may not get to the
bottom of it.

I'll keep looking and various databases, but I'm not that confident we will
find a definitive answer with K+, few study this nutrient in aquatic
systems in terms of excess toxicity.

For now, I think suggesting using KNO3 only for most CO2 enriched tanks(No
extra K+ from KCl/K2SO4), REDUCE the recommended levels down to 10-15ppm
which is plenty for plants.

I'll try a high K+ dose at 30ppm on my Ammannia for two weeks and see.

Regards, 
Tom Barr



 





 


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